Tangible Social Network

ABSTRACT

A tangible social network system comprises at least two interactive physical objects adapted for communicatively linking with each other, a visualization application for providing a visual representation of a user&#39;s tangible social network, and an object communication frame. An interactive physical object comprises a controller for forming a communicatively linked relationship with another interactive physical object and for receiving and responding to commands and data received from a linked object, and an audio or visual response subsystem. An object communication frame comprises a housing adapted to receive interactive physical objects, a communications subsystem for managing communications with installed objects and with interactive physical objects communicatively linked with installed objects, a controller, and a power subsystem for powering installed objects. The frame or objects may interact with a visualization application, comprising subsystems for receiving information about the user&#39;s tangible social network and deriving a representation of it, and a graphical user interface for providing the visual representation to the user.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a divisional application of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/388,514, filed Feb. 18, 2009, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,002,752,issued Apr. 7, 2015, which claims the benefit of U.S. ProvisionalApplication Ser. No. 61/029,552, filed Feb. 18, 2008, the entiredisclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

This invention was made with U.S. government support under Grant Numbers000500-NSF-2387620, 000500-NSF-2387621, 000500-NSF-2387712, and000500-NSF-2387713, awarded by the National Science Foundation. Thegovernment has certain rights in this invention.

FIELD OF THE TECHNOLOGY

The present invention relates to social networking applications and, inparticular, to a system employing reciprocally exchanged interactivephysical objects that automatically establish direct communicationchannels and can capture and display social link information.

BACKGROUND

As PC-based social networking applications such as Facebook and MySpacehave soared in popularity, social networking tools are now beingincorporated into many kinds of online spaces. It is clear that manypeople have a desire to create, maintain, and display their socialconnections. PC-based social networking applications have demonstratedthat digital media can support these desires quite effectively. However,PC-based social networks have a number of limiting characteristics.First, PC-based social networks are tied to the conventions of thegraphical user interface (GUI), keyboard, and mouse. While the GUIparadigm is without doubt hugely successful and important, itslimitations have been well documented [see, e.g., Klemmer, S., Hartmann,B., Takayama, L., “How bodies matter: five themes for interactiondesign,” Proceedings of the 6th ACM conference on Designing Interactivesystems, New York, N.Y., USA, ACM Press (2006), 140-149]. These include,for example, poor ability to support collaborative work, single point ofcontrol (the cursor), poor ability to properly take advantage offoreground and background attention, and homogenization of taskexecution [Ishii, H., Ullmer, B., “Tangible bits: towards seamlessinterfaces between people, bits and atoms,” CHI '97: Proceedings of theSIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, New York, N.Y.,USA, ACM Press (1997), 234-241]. Especially for social applications, thefailure of GUI-based interactions to seamlessly and ambiently integrateinto the user's physical world reduces their power to support a user'ssocial behavior, which is behavior that often occurs, and until recentlyalways occurred, in the physical realm.

PC-based social networks also often induce social behavior that stronglydiffers from behavior found in the physical world, most likely due tothe ways in which purely virtual spaces differ from physical ones. Forexample, in virtual settings, identities can easily shift and multiply,message cost is almost nil, in that a message can be just as easily sentto a thousand people as to one, and information is generally freelyavailable and searchable by the public [Donath, J., Boyd, D., “Publicdisplays of connection”, BT Technology Journal (2004) 22(4):71-82]. Itis common to find users who have literally thousands of friends in anonline space, even though such a number would seem ridiculous in termsof physical space. While more in-depth analyses provide some reasons forthis [Boyd, D., “Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community intobeing on social network sites,” First Monday (2003), 11(12)], itsuffices to note that social networks in the virtual realm need notstrongly correlate with social networks situated in the physical realm.By no means are these characteristics inherently bad, but they dosuggest a significant break from pre-digital forms of social behavior.

The way in which users create a social network through forming linksusing a web-based application varies from application to application,and the signaling cost varies as well. In general, though, linkformation is mediated by an explicit invitation process. A user firstcreates a profile, filling in personal information and the like. She canthen invite friends. For example, the user types in a potential friend'semail address and invites them to join her social network by clicking abutton. The recipient will receive the invitation, usually via email,and can choose to accept or decline the link, also via a button click.The cost to produce a link then, is relatively low: a few clicks by bothusers, plus their willingness to send and accept the invitation.Declining links, however, is often perceived as rude. This fact tends topositively bias the creation of social links, as users would rather livewith a weak link in their profile than upset the inviter. Donath andBoyd provide trenchant analyses of link formation, noting that the“friendships” formed on social networking sites are not equivalent tothose found in the physical social milieu [Danah Boyd, “Friends,Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community into being on social networksites.” First Monday, 11(12), December 2006; J. Donath and D. Boyd,“Public displays of connection,” BT Technology Journal, 22(4):71-82,2004]. Boyd lists thirteen factors people give for forming links, or“Friending,” only three of which involve actual acquaintance with theperson to-be-linked.

A great deal of theoretical and empirical scholarship has explored theways in which people attach meaning to physical objects [See, e.g.,Csikszentmihalyi, M., Rochberg-Halton, E., “The meaning of things:domestic symbols and the self,” Cambridge University Press (1981)].Following some of this work, social objects are defined to be a physicalobject in which the symbolic value of the object lies in how itrepresents a social relationship or relationships. A wedding ring is afine example: its role is chiefly symbolic and it symbolizes thecommitment two spouses make to one another. A social object can alsosymbolize wider group membership; for example, fraternity pins andmilitary dog tags serve this function. Social objects are thusintimately entwined with our social lives; they serve as physicalreferents to our relationships and influence how we construct andmaintain those relationships.

Some prior work has explored how physical objects acquire meaning andhow designers can engage these meanings with tangible user interfaces.For example, Chang et. al. explore the power of objects as intimatecommunication channels with “LumiTouch” [Chang, A., Resner, B., Koerner,B., Wang, X., Ishii, H., “Lumitouch: an emotional communication device,”CHI '01: extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, NewYork, N.Y., USA, ACM Press (2001), 313-314]. This work recognizes thatphotographs often act as social objects. Chang et. al. embed tactile andvisual affordances into photo frames, allowing them to act as direct,ambient communication channels. A user can touch force-sensitive pads onone frame, causing different patterns of light to appear on a partneredframe. In this way, two people can connect over distance through objectsthat represent their relationship. LumiTouch thus reinforces themetaphorical role photographs already occupy. LumiTouch frames areexplicitly coupled with particular people—the people represented byphotographs in the partnered frames.

Elise van den Hoven and others have also argued that tangible interfaceresearch should include personal objects, or mementos [van den Hoven,E., Eggen, B., “Personal souvenirs as ambient intelligent objects,”sOc-EUSAI '05: Proceedings of the 2005 joint conference on Smart objectsand ambient intelligence, New York, N.Y., USA, ACM Press (2005),123-128]. Her work includes both theoretical discussions of thisargument, as well as experiments with tangible interfaces that includemementos.

Mugellini et. al.'s Memodules explicitly cites these arguments[Mugellini, E., Rubegni, E., Gerardi, S., Abou Khaled, O., “Usingpersonal objects as tangible interfaces for memory recollection andsharing,” TEI '07: Proceedings of the 1st international conference onTangible and embedded interaction, New York, N.Y., USA, ACM Press(2007), 231-238]. Memodules lets users associate mementos with digitalmedia. RFID tags are applied to a memento such as, for example, aseashell from a vacation to the beach. Using an RFID reader and a visualPC application, the object can be associated with arbitrary content.When placed on the reader later on, the object will conjure up thatmedia based on the associations it has previously acquired. For example,a user could associate the seashell with sounds of the ocean and beachpictures; when the seashell is held over the memodules reader, thesystem plays back the ocean sounds and displays the beach pictures. TheMemodules system represents an attempt to augment pre-existing, inertphysical objects—instead of conjuring memories in the mind of the user,the mementos can conjure media in the user's physical environment.

Barry's Story Beads introduced a new kind of object that hasmemento-like qualities [Barbara Barry and Glorianna Davenport,“StoryBeads: a wearable for story construction and trade”, MIT; Barry,B., “StoryBeads: a tool for distributed and mobile storytelling”, MIT MSThesis (2000)]. StoryBeads consists of small beads that can be strungtogether, each of which contain static EEPROM memory that is used tostore images. A larger amulet bead can be connected with the imagebeads. This amulet includes an LCD screen and a simple interface. Theinterface permits the user to view the images stored on the beads. Thebeads can be traded among users and images can be transferred from beadto bead. A desktop GUI lets users transfer fresh images onto the beadsthemselves, as well as associate the images with metadata. StoryBeadsseeks to establish a link between the physical beads and the narrativedata they contain, as well as to explore how groups of beads can beviewed as whole narratives and be used to build new narratives. In thissense, Barry is exploring how physical objects can be associated withpersonal, social information, and how the physical objects might affordways of understanding and manipulating that information. StoryBeads neednot represent social relationships and they do not function to createcommunication channels between users.

Kikin-Gil has created a design prototype for a different bead systemthat supports social communication. Her “BuddyBeads” [Kikin-Gil, R.,“BuddyBeads: techno-jewelry for non verbal communication within groupsof teenage girls”, Proceedings of the 7th international conference onHuman computer interaction with mobile devices & services (2005),375-376] are strung together as a bracelet. Each bead is associated witheither a person or an agreed-upon message. A user can make the messagebeads of different members of the group vibrate by pressing on messageand person beads on her bracelet. The beads as a whole act to link anetwork of people via dedicated physical objects, but do not purport toallow users to explore social links beyond those in their bracelet. Itis not clear whether the BuddyBeads system was ever fully implemented.

As a class project at the MIT Media Lab, Norton, Liu and Laibowitzprototyped a system and coined the term “tangible social network”[Laibowitz, M., Norton, K., Liu, M., “Clique”, MIT class project, 2004].Their “Clique” system consisted of customizable, tradable dolls, eachdoll representing its creator. These dolls were to be exchanged among agroup of friends. These dolls thus act as social objects, by bothexplicitly representing their creators, and by being gifts. The dollswould be placed on a special table that could take note of theirrelative positions and project this information onto a nearby wall orscreen. Users could associate data with the dolls, as well as turn thedoll's heads, perhaps to indicate their current feelings about therepresented friends.

Camerer points out that gifts are a specific type of object that islikely to shape social relationships [Camerer, C., “Gifts as EconomicSignals and Social Symbol”, The American Journal of Sociology (1988),94:180-214]. Gifts can be treated as signals of one's investment inanother person. Put simply, a good gift is a physical symbol of a socialrelationship. Any gift contains information about the relationshipbetween the giver and the receiver. First and foremost, each giftdenotes the existence of a social link between two people. Second, thecost of the gift—how much time, money and knowledge are required toacquire and present it—represents the strength of that relationship.

Gifts can therefore sketch out the links of a social network. If thisinformation can be captured, it can be used to document social networksthat have more detail and greater consonance with a user's“reality-based” social network than current internet-based socialnetwork applications. Social networks can also be built upautomatically, without forcing users to build their networks fromscratch via clicks and email invitations, such as is currently requiredby internet-based social networks. These features would remove thebarriers to entry and use that PC-based social networks entail, andwould thus permit natural integration of social networking into a largergroup of people's lives. Further, if this information could be capturedwith the implicit permission of the user, the privacy problems raised bydata-mining methods for social network discovery would be avoided.Finally, a system that consists of communicative social objects—objectsthat provide a communication channel between the givers andreceivers—would “close the loop” on the social networking application:instead of just allowing people to observe social network structures, amedium could be provided for social communication and display. Such asystem would provide a complete social network application: a medium forexploring and building social networks.

SUMMARY

A tangible social network employs reciprocally exchanged interactivephysical objects that automatically establish and provide directcommunication channels between the people exchanging them. The systempreferably also captures and displays social link information derivedfrom the interactions of the objects with each other and with theirenvironment. The system leverages gift-giving practices, presentingusers with interactive physical objects that they exchange with oneanother. These objects automatically form always-on communicationchannels between givers and receivers. As a user collects more and moreof these objects, he or she begins to acquire a dynamic, physicalrepresentation of, and an interface to, her social network. Theinteractions of the community of users implicitly represent thestructure of the social network. These data can be accessed with anoptional GUI application, allowing users to explore and interact withtheir social network. A prototype, the “Connectibles” system, wasimplemented at the MIT Media Lab, where it was the subject of three userstudies.

In one aspect of the invention, a tangible social network systemcomprises at least two interactive physical objects, each interactivephysical object being adapted for communicatively linking with at leastone other interactive physical object, at least one tangible socialnetwork visualization application for providing a visual representationof the tangible social network of a user, and at least one objectcommunication frame capable of displaying at least one interactivephysical object. In another aspect, a tangible social network comprisesat least one tangible social network management system for receivinginformation about the composition of a tangible social network of atleast one user, wherein the tangible social network of the usercomprises at least one set of communicatively linked interactivephysical objects, for sending user-generated interactive physical objectcommands to at least one of the communicatively linked interactivephysical objects, for deriving a representation of the tangible socialnetwork of the user, for providing the representation of the tangiblesocial network of the user to the user in a visual form, and foraccepting and acting on user commands and data related to management ofthe tangible social network of the user.

In one aspect, an interactive physical object comprises a housing, acontroller for forming a communicatively linked relationship with atleast a second interactive physical object, for receiving and processingcommands and data received from the linked interactive physical object,and for generating at least one response command in response to thereceived commands and data, and at least one response subsystem adaptedfor displaying at least one visual or audio response to a responsecommand received from the controller. The interactive physical objectmay also receive and process commands and data received from at leastone tangible social network visualization application and generate atleast one response command in response to the received visualizationapplication commands and data.

In another aspect, an object communication frame comprises a housingadapted to receive installation of at least one interactive physicalobject, a communications subsystem for receiving and managingcommunications with the installed interactive physical objects and withinteractive physical objects communicatively linked with the installedinteractive physical objects, a controller for receiving and processingcommands and data received from the communications subsystem andgenerating at least one response command or data in response to thereceived commands and data, and an interactive physical object powersubsystem adapted for providing power to installed interactive physicalobjects. The object communication frame may further receive and processcommands and data received from at least one tangible social networkvisualization application and generate at least one response command inresponse to the received visualization application commands and data.

In yet another aspect, a tangible social network visualizationapplication comprises a communications subsystem for receivinginformation about the composition of a tangible social network of auser, the tangible social network comprising at least one set ofcommunicatively linked interactive physical objects, a tangible socialnetwork visualization subsystem for deriving a representation of thetangible social network of the user from the information received by thecommunications subsystem, and a graphical user interface adapted forproviding the representation of the tangible social network to the userin a visual form.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other aspects, advantages and novel features of the invention willbecome more apparent from the following detailed description of theinvention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawingswherein:

FIG. 1 is block diagram of an embodiment of a tangible social networkaccording to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an alternative embodiment of a tangiblesocial network according to the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an interactive physicalobject according to one aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 4 depicts three types of interactive physical objects implementedas part of a prototype embodiment of a tangible social network accordingto the present invention;

FIGS. 5A and 5B depict the populated electronic circuit boards of buttonand knob interactive physical objects implemented as part of a prototypeembodiment of a tangible social network, according to the presentinvention;

FIG. 5C is a schematic of the six pin interface used to connect theinteractive physical objects of FIGS. 5A and 5B to the objectcommunication frame of a prototype embodiment of a tangible socialnetwork according to the present invention;

FIGS. 6A and 6B depict user-embellished interactive physical objectsfrom a study of a prototype embodiment of a tangible social network,according to the present invention;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an object communicationframe according to one aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 8 depicts interactive physical objects connected into a prototypeembodiment of an object communication frame, according to one aspect ofthe present invention;

FIGS. 9A-D depict prototypes of an alternative embodiment of a tangiblesocial network according to the present invention, wherein theinteractive physical objects are connected directly together without theuse of an object communication frame;

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of an embodiment of a visualizationapplication, according to one aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a screen shot from an example embodiment of a visualizationapplication, according to one aspect the present invention;

FIG. 12 is a schematic of an example embodiment of a communicationsprotocol, according to one aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is a diagram of an embodiment of a network message format usablewith the protocol of FIG. 12, according to one aspect of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 14 is a schematic of an example embodiment of the protocol used forthe establishment of a communications link between a pair ofreciprocally exchanged interactive physical objects, according to oneaspect of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A social network application rooted in physical objects and real worldsocial behavior leverages natural gift-giving practices, presentingusers with customizable, interactive physical objects that they exchangewith one another. Reciprocally exchanged interactive physical objectsautomatically form always-on communication channels between givers andreceivers. Interactive physical objects can be of any interactionmodality: visual, tactile, aural, or combinations thereof. For example,for two simple touch-sensitive interactive physical objects in aprototype implementation, when one user touches her interactive physicalobject, the other user's interactive physical object glows, andvice-versa. As a user collects interactive physical objects from herfriends, she builds up a dynamic, physical representation of, andinterface to, her social network. The interactions of a community ofusers implicitly represent the structure of the social network byshowing, for example, who has exchanged interactive physical objectswith whom and how often they communicate with their interactive physicalobjects. These data may be visualized with a GUI application, allowingusers to explore and interact with their social network. The networkarchitecture of the present invention instantiates a fully tangible,TCP/IP framework, allowing synchronous communication across largedistances among many users. It is designed to support large numbers ofinteractive objects without requiring special initialization rituals onthe part of the users and it also allows highly simplified developmentof remote awareness applications.

Using the system of the invention, users acquire interactive physicalobjects that represent people in their social network. In a preferredembodiment, an interactive physical object is given to the user by theperson it represents. These objects are then used to communicate withthe people represented. When users exchange objects, the object-pairsform a communication channel. When a user gives another a physicalobject without receiving one in return, the giver can send messages tothe physical object using a standard device, such as a computer orphone. The communication channels can take any form, including audio,visual, or tactile. The network that supports the communication isagnostic as to the interaction type. As the user collects interactivephysical objects that represent their social network, the physicalarrangements of these objects as well as the communication habits of theuser are captured by the system. The structure of the social network, asimplicitly represented by user interactions, can be accessed with a GUIapplication, either web-based or installed locally on a computer,thereby allowing users to explore and interact with their social networkin the same way currently facilitated by web-based social networks.However, in the preferred embodiment, the primary mode of interaction isnot via a computer, but rather is directly through the interactivephysical objects themselves.

As used herein, the following terms expressly include, but are not to belimited to:

The term “social network” means a social network software/firmwareapplication when it is clear from context that the term is being used torefer to an application (such as MySpace) rather than to a person's setof relationships.

The terms “PC-based social network” or “virtual social network” meansoftware or firmware applications that are accessed via a personalcomputer graphical user interface, and which are typically web-based.

The term “tangible social network” means an application comprisinginteractive physical objects that allow users to create, maintain, anddisplay social connections. In particular, a tangible social network isa system that comprises interactive physical objects, augments thoseobjects to enable direct channels between the people represented bythem, and digitally captures and displays social link informationinherent in those objects. A tangible social network is thus acollection of objects that, in aggregate, map out the social network ofall of the people with whom they are associated.

The term “interactive physical object” means a small physical token thatcan establish a communication channel between two people and is intendedto be manipulated by one of the people in order to communicate with thesecond person.

The terms “linked interactive physical objects” and “paired interactivephysical objects” mean two or more interactive physical objects thathave established a communication channel between themselves.

The term “object communication frame” means a device that provides powerand communication to interactive physical objects and which typicallyprovides a framework within which the objects may be arranged by a user.

The term “visualization application” means an application that supportsthe specifics of a tangible social network. The visualizationapplication is preferably employed to directly reflect the physicalarrangement of the users' interactive physical objects and typically canalso be used to interact with the partner objects.

The term “Connectibles”, with an upper case “C”, refers to a particularprototype implementation of a tangible social network as describedherein, including the interactive physical objects, networkinginfrastructure, and visual application. In particular, Connectiblesconsists of a network of reciprocally exchanged interactive physicalobjects, wherein each pair of reciprocally exchanged interactivephysical objects implicitly represents a social relationship, andwherein each pair forms a communication channel between the twoexchangers.

The term “connectibles”, with a lower case “c”, refers to a particularprorotype implementation of a set of interactive physical objects, asdescribed herein.

The term “friendFrame” refers to a particular prototype implementationof an object communication frame, as described herein.

A basic tangible social networking system according to the inventionemploys interactive physical objects and an optional visualizationapplication that allows users to explore their own and their friends'object collections and arrangements. FIG. 1 is block diagram of apreferred embodiment of a tangible social network that employs objectcommunication frames, according to one aspect of the present invention.In FIG. 1, interactive physical objects 105, 110, interactive physicalobjects 115, 120, and interactive physical objects 125, 130 arecommunicatively linked. Interactive physical objects 105, 115, 125 areinstalled in, or are otherwise in communication with, objectcommunication frame 140, interactive physical object 110 is installedin, or is otherwise in communication with, object communication frame145, interactive physical object 120 is installed in, or is otherwise incommunication with, object communication frame 150, and interactivephysical object 130 is installed in, or is otherwise in communicationwith, object communication frame 155. Object communication frame 140 isfurther in communication with visualization application 165, whichcommunicates via internet/wireless network 160 with object communicationframes 145, 150, 155 and through them with interactive physical objects110, 120, 130. While visualization application 165 is part of thispreferred embodiment, it will be clear to one of ordinary skill in theart that alternative systems embodying the functionality and concepts ofthe present invention may be implemented without the use of avisualization system and that such systems are within the scope of theinvention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an alternative preferred embodiment of atangible social network that does not employ object communicationframes. In FIG. 2, interactive physical objects 205, 210, interactivephysical objects 215, 220, and interactive physical objects 225, 230 arecommunicatively linked. Interactive physical objects 205, 215, 225 arein communication with visualization application 240, which communicatesvia internet/wireless network 250 with interactive physical objects 210,220, 230. Interactive physical objects 205, 215, 225 are also in directcommunication with internet/wireless network 250, through whichinteractive physical objects 205, 215, 225 may communicate directly withinteractive physical objects 210, 220, 230. While visualization system240 is part of this alternative preferred embodiment, it will be clearto one of ordinary skill in the art that alternative systems embodyingthe functionality and concepts of the present invention may beimplemented without the use of a visualization application and that suchsystems are within the scope of the invention.

Interactive physical objects can be of any interaction modality: visual,tactile, aural, or a combination thereof. These different kinds ofobjects can support a different type, or types, of interactions. FIG. 3is a block diagram of an embodiment of a generalized interactivephysical object according to this aspect of the present invention. InFIG. 3, controller 310 is responsible for message processing, formingthe communicatively linked relationship with another interactivephysical object, receiving 320 and processing commands and data receivedfrom the linked interactive physical object and the visualizationapplication, if used, and sending 330 commands and data back. In apreferred embodiment, the tangible interface object has memory 340.Display/audio response system responds to commands from controller 310by displaying at least one visual or audio response and may also respondto commands from optional user interface controls 360. User controlfeedback 370 may also optionally be supplied, as may an on-board powersource.

In a preferred embodiment, an interactive physical object communicatesonly with a single exchanged partner. As a general principle, if anobject were to habitually broadcast to multiple others, then therelationship between object and giver might be eroded. However, it iscertainly possible for the system to provide the capability for anobject to be linked to, and interact with, more than a single otherinteractive physical object, and this capability may be desirable incertain applications. For example, a group of interactive physicalobjects might be linked in order to permit communication between themembers of a family or a particular social or interest group. As it iseasily within the ability of one of skill in the art to implement suchfunctionality, this capability is therefore considered to be within thescope of the present invention.

Normally, interactive physical objects will only be exchanged with anobject of the same type, but it is clearly possible to permit theexchange of different types of objects since the system is capable ofsupporting many different types of interactive objects. In certaincircumstances, an exchange of disparate interactive objects may bedesirable, and it is well within the abilities of one of ordinary skillin the art to implement this functionality by creating interactionmappings between disparate types of objects. Disparate object exchanges,while likely to be uncommon, are therefore considered to be within thescope of the invention.

In a preferred embodiment, users do not have to engage in any specialbehaviors in order to reciprocally exchange interactive physicalobjects. Reciprocally exchanged interactive physical objects do not needto be touched together or connected in any way in order to becommunicatively linked. This pairing is seamless, as the system takescare of this behind the scenes. A user simply needs to give one andreceive one in exchange. In fact, interactive physical objects can beexchanged asynchronously. Reciprocally exchanged interactive physicalobjects preferably may remain paired “for life,” even if they areremoved from the system during rearrangement or otherwise lose power. Inother words, the communication channel between a pair of reciprocallyexchanged interactive physical objects is always-on and unbreakable.While it is clear to one of skill in the art that pairings may be madeto be erasable or otherwise reassignable, as a general principle thesymbolic value of the objects as indicators of a particular person wouldconsequently suffer. However, it is within the ability of one ofordinary skill in the art to provide this functionality, and it istherefore considered to be within the scope of the present invention.

Interactive physical objects according to the present invention canprovide a variety of features and options, such as high or low bandwidthinteractions and evanescent or persistent messages. High bandwidthinteractions allow users to send rich messages, such as pictures ormusic. Low bandwidth messages are more compact; for example, but notlimited to, such messages might cause a partner object to simply lightup. Evanescent messages appear and fade away, while persistent messagespermanently change the state of an interactive physical object untilanother message is received. Self-contained messages can be initiatedusing just the affordances and display on the interactive objects, whilePC-dependent messages require the use of a computer to send a message.For example, in the prototype system, sending a picture to a pictureconnectible required a computer. However, it is clear to one of skill inthe art that a picture connectible might be designed to directly acceptimages from another device, such as, but not limited to, a USP stick orflash card.

FIG. 4 depicts three types of interactive physical objects implementedas part of the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment of a tangible socialnetwork according to the present invention, button connectible 410, knobconnectible 420, and picture connectible 430. Button connectible 410, asimplemented in the prototype, comprises large button 440 and a ring ofLEDs under frosted acrylic cover 450. Pushing button 440 causes itspartner connectible to slowly light up, then fade out. An optionalbottom LED is reserved for feedback to the sender: it glows when theuser pushes button 440, indicating that the system did indeed captureand send the message. Button messages are thus low bandwidth,evanescent, and self-contained.

Knob connectible 420, as implemented in the “Connectibles” prototype,have twistable knob 460 and a ring of LEDs under frosted acrylic cover470. The lights on knob connectible 420 reflect how far its partner'sknob is turned. An optional bottom LED is used as feedback, as in buttonconnectible 410, in order to indicate to the sender that a message hasbeen sent. Each knob 460 has a pointer painted on it that indicates whatposition it is currently in, and thus the state of the partneredconnectible's ring of lights. Knob messages are thus low-bandwidth,persistent, and self-contained.

In the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, the button and knobconnectibles each include an Atmel AVR Atmega88 TQFP microcontroller.The physical pushbutton on the button connectible is wired through apassive debounce to an interrupt pin on the AVR. The knob on the knobconnectible is a potentiometer wired through a simple resistive dividerinto an ADC pin on the microcontroller. The button and knob connectiblescontrol their LEDs independently with dedicated GPIO pins. The remainingcomponents on these connectibles are passives, such as decouplingcapacitors and pull-up resistors. These connectibles can support 20 MHzceramic resonators, but in this implementation they were run at 8 MHz.The button and knob connectibles were built with the same 1.5″ squaretwo-sided PCB. The firmware code was written in C using AVRStudio4.

FIGS. 5A and 5B depict the populated electronic circuit boards of button410 and knob 420 interactive physical objects of FIG. 4. FIG. 5A depictsthe tops of the button 5410 and knob 520 connectibles. FIG. 5B, depictsthe bottom of either a knob or button connectible. FIG. 5C is aschematic of the six pin interface used to connect the interactivephysical objects of FIGS. 5A and 5B to the object communication frame ofthe prototype “Connectibles” embodiment.

Picture connectible 430 (FIG. 4) is the most complex connectibleimplemented for the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment. It comprises afull color OLED display 480, with four buttons hidden under each corner.A user can press these buttons by pushing on the corner of the display.In the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, a user can send pre-setanimation messages to their friend's partner connectibles using the toptwo buttons: the left button sends a series of flashing “Hi!” graphics,which last about five seconds. The right button sends a series ofanimated hearts, which also lasts about five seconds. Users can alsosend each other pictures using the visualization application. Thepictures appear on the partner connectible and remain there untilchanged by the sender. Each picture connectible stores the sent images,with space for approximately one hundred pictures. Using the bottombuttons, the user can browse through all the pictures sent to thatconnectible; the left button browses backward, the right forward.Picture connectible messages are thus high bandwidth, both evanescent(the animation messages) and persistent (the image messages), and bothself-contained and PC-dependent (again due to the animation and imagemessages, respectively). It will be clear to one of skill in the artthat, with sufficient memory, picture connectibles are suited forplaying video clips, with or without looping.

Picture connectible 430 is necessarily more sophisticated than thebutton 410 and knob 420 connectibles. In the prototype embodiment, itcontains an Atmega644 AVR TQFP microcontroller. Like the button and knobconnectibles, picture connectible 430 can be run at 20 MHz, but was runat 8 MHz for stability reasons. The picture display is a NEWTEC 128×1288/16 bit RGB color OLED. The AVR is wired to the display via a parallelconnection and the OLED is connected to the board via a 30-pin flexconnector. The four buttons on the picture connectible were debouncedand wired to interrupt pins on the AVR. The AVR uses two GPIO outputs tocontrol its two LEDs. This PCB also includes a 16 Mbit Atmel AT45DB161Dexternal flash chip (SOIC package), and all images are stored as bitmapson this flash chip. The AVR communicates via SPI to the flash chip. Thechip can store approximately 100 raw bitmaps before filling up. Aswitching voltage boost circuit built around a TPS61041 IC provides astable 12V supply required by the OLED. The PCB was two-sided and1.4125″ square, exactly the size of the OLED. The firmware code waswritten in C using AVRStudio4.

Another type of connectible developed for the “Connectibles” prototypeis the “glint” connectible. When a user waves his wand over a “glint”,its partner glows. “Glint” connectibles use LEDs as light sensors inorder to support this interaction.

In the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, all connectibles requireexternal power; they do not operate without an object communicationframe. If removed from the friendFrame, they immediately turn off. Thismakes them substantially simpler, cheaper, and smaller than batterypowered devices. It will be clear to one of skill in the art, however,that interactive physical objects according to the present invention mayadvantageously have their own onboard power source including, but notlimited to, one or more battery, solar, or wireless RF power supplies.

All prototype connectibles included reset buttons and UART serialoutputs for debugging purposes. The connectible printed circuit boards(PCBs) were all placed in sandblasted acrylic cases. Connectiblesconnected to the friendFrame via the six pin interface shown in FIG. 5C.All PCBs, both connectible and friendFrame, were manufactured byAdvanced Circuits. They were designed and populated by hand in house.All microcontroller code was written in C using AVR Studio 4 with anSTK500 programmer. Pascal Stang's Procyon AVRlib was used extensively.

In the prototype, all connectibles were the same size—1.5″ square andabout ½″ tall. While this eliminated the mapping of importance tophysical size, it addressed a problem that subjects of one experimenthad: the bigger connectibles had more connection points than the smallerones, even though the people represented by them were not necessarilymore “socially connected” than those represented by smallerconnectibles. Reducing all connectibles to the same size in theprototype eliminated this issue as a variable in the user study.However, it will be clear to one of skill in the art that interactivephysical objects need not all be of the same size or shape, in the sameway that they need not all have the same capabilities and features.

It will further be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that thesystem is trivially extensible. Importantly, the system supportsinteractions of any modality or media type, including but not limitedto, audio, video, and tactile interactions. One trivial addition tointeractive objects that play audio and video are “play” and “stop”buttons, allowing the receiving user to determine when to play thereceived media. The default mode could alternatively be to loop suchmedia. Other possibilities include a microphone/speaker object, whereby,for example, a user may leave specific audio messages for a friend andthat friend's paired object blinks like an answering machine in order toindicate that a message is present. A button press then plays themessage through the speaker.

Another option is objects that provide musical instrument sounds, suchas, for example but not limited to, a mini drum machine with a fewbuttons and a speaker. Pressing the buttons synchronously triggerssamples on both paired objects. In this way, two people can communicateover a distance through music.

Yet another option is a shared touchscreen object. The screen displaysthe scribbles of both friends, acting as a shared scratch space. Thisobject might also support text messages, in the manner of a tangibleversion of Twitter, a popular social network application that allowsusers to broadcast very short text messages (140 characters or less) totheir friends via both a web and a mobile device interface.

One low bandwidth option is a modification of the button connectible.This connectible is a double-throw or toggle style button. If the buttonis pushed, it stays down, keeping its partner lit. Another low bandwidthoption is an object with a component that physically moves. Theseobjects are outfitted with small motors or servos. One prototypedeveloped was a pair of connectibles with small wooden hands attached tomotors. When a button on one connectible was pressed, it would cause itspartner's hand to wave for a few seconds.

It will be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that thepossibilities for interactive physical object types are limitless. Forexample, long-term subjects of one of the user studies indicated adesire to know whether anyone was on the other end when they sent amessage with a connectible. One subject only wanted connectibles thatwere all “passive,” in that they did not require the user's directmanipulation. Instead, they would sense the environment in differentways, sending messages that indicated ambient noise, light, and so on.The long-term subjects “modded” a button connectible to work as anambient connectible. They affixed a solenoid right on top of the button.These users taped a small, force-sensitive pad to a chair, and wired thepad to the solenoid. The solenoid was thus triggered every time the userchanged his posture in his chair, pushing the button and sending amessage. Obviously, this is not exactly what a “typical user” might do,but it indicates that ambient connectibles, or built-in ambient sensingin the object connection frame, would be an advantageous option. It alsoindicates the flexibility of the system, permitting users to adapt basicinteractive physical objects to meet specific individual objectives.

It is also possible to provide the ability for users to build their owninteractive objects. Because the system's network architecture isindependent of the object input/output behaviors, a simple interactivephysical object “plinth” can be provided. This base unit breaks out fourpins—power, ground, input and output. A user may attach his owninteractive unit to the plinth. For example, putting a high voltage onthe input pin would trigger a message; this message would bring theoutput pin on the paired connectible high for a few seconds. Anyarbitrary switching system could thus be built on top of the plinth. Forexample, the waving hand connectible mentioned previously was built inthis way. Its designer had no knowledge of the Connectibles networkprotocol, nor did he need to. All he had to build was a very simpleon/off electric switch and stick it on top of a plinth styleconnectible.

In the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, the connectibles indicatedthat messages had been sent with a glowing LED. It will be clear to oneof skill in the art that more, or different, feedback may also beprovided. The feedback can be of a different modality than the message,or can appear somewhere clearly separate from the output LEDs. The LEDfeedback may alternatively indicate “message arrived,” instead of“message sent.” Additionally, feedback may be provided about the stateof other people's connectibles. The visualization application can alsoreflect the state of the knobs and picture objects as well, providing atight coupling between the physical state of the connectibles and theirvirtual representations.

In the preferred embodiment, the interactive physical objects supportsome degree of physical customizability. It appears that customizationcreates a stronger, more specific association between connectible andperson. The knobs and buttons in the prototype embodiment included paperfaceplates that could be attached and decorated, while the pictureconnectibles could be customized on-the-fly by sending new pictures tothem. The design included removable paper faceplates for the knob andbutton connectibles. Users could decorate the connectibles in any way:for example, they could include drawings, or instructions on how tointerpret the connectibles messages.

FIGS. 6A and 6B depict user-embellished connectibles from a study of theprototype embodiment. In FIG. 6A, knob connectible 605 has beendecorated by faceplate 610 and button connectibles 610, 620 have beendecorated with faceplates 625, 630. Alternate personalized faceplates640,645 are also shown. FIG. 6B is a closeup of button connectible 605and faceplates 610, 645. These faceplates appear to enrich the exchangeand interaction semantics by increasing the signal cost and symbolicvalue associated with a connectible.

In a preferred embodiment, the system includes an object communicationframe. In the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, the objectcommunication frame, known as the “friendFrame”, simplified a number oftechnological issues regarding the networking protocol. The objectcommunication frame provides power and communication behind the scenes,eliminating the special units required by other designs. While theobject communication frame could limit the number of interactivephysical objects a user could acquire, it will be clear to one of skillin the art that the object communication frame may be designed so thatit may be easily extended with one or more pluggable add-on frames. Oneadvantage of the object communication frame is that it allows users tocreate arrangements with disconnected groups, which is not possible ifall of the objects must physically touch. In a preferred embodiment, theobject communication frame provides both power and a connection to theInternet or wireless network.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an embodiment of an object communicationframe according to one aspect of the present invention. In FIG. 7,object communication frame 700 comprises controller 710 which receivesand processes commands and data received from communications subsystem720 and, optionally, from optional user controls 730. Communicationssubsystem 720 receives and manages communications with the internet orwireless network 740, installed interactive physical objects 750, and,optionally, with an associated computing device 760. Also optionallypresent are memory 770 and user control feedback system 780. Interactivephysical object power subsystem 790 provides power to installedinteractive physical objects.

FIG. 8 depicts prototype interactive physical objects arranged in, andconnected into, a prototype embodiment of an object communication frame.In FIG. 8, object communication frame 800 comprises housing 810 andempty interactive physical object connection ports 820. Frame 800 iscurrently hosting installed picture connectibles 830, 840, buttonconnectibles 850, 860, and knob connectibles 870, 880. Knob connectible880 is being adjusted by a user 890.

Reciprocally exchanged interactive physical objects automatically formalways-on communication channels between givers and receivers. Users donot need to engage in any special or contrived behaviors in order topair exchanged objects. Once a pair of exchanged objects are plugged into their respective object connection frames, they automatically findone another and create an persistent communication channel. This channelis not broken, even if the objects or frames are powered off or moved.This seamless exchange is supported by a network and addressing protocoltechnology developed specifically for this system.

In the “Connectibles” prototype embodiment, the friendFrame includes anAtmel Atmega644 AVR microcontroller, a few general purpose RC-debouncedbuttons, and four output LEDs. The friendFrame includes a low-dropoutlinear voltage regulator and accepted a consumer wall wart. The voltageregulator provides a stable 3.3V supply and could source up to 4 A. ThefriendFrame also includes an FTDI FT232R IC, which translates a serialUART connection from the AVR to a PC USB. The firmware code was writtenin C using AVRStudio4

Each friendFrame cell provides a six pin interface (FIG. 5C) to thefriendFrame bus, in two rows of three. These two rows are slightlyoffset so that a connectible cannot be plugged in upside down. Top row530, from left to right, provides pins VCC 540, NOF 545 (a no functionpin), and GND 550. Bottom row 560, from left to right, provides SDA 570,ENUM 575, and SCL 580. SDA 570 and SCL 580 provide access to an I²C(Inter-integrated-circuit), also known as a TWI (Two Wire Interface)bus, comprising two lines, SDA (data) and SCL (clock). Using two 3:8digital encoders, the friendFrame AVR has separate ENUM outputconnection 575 to each cell. ENUM pin 575 is used by the friendFrame todiscover if a connectible is present in a cell. Top row 530 providespower 540 (3.3V VCC) and ground 550 (GND), allowing the connectible toturn on. Middle pin NOF 545 was unconnected, and was included only forstructure and simplicity. While the prototype structure is disclosed, itwill be clear to one of the skill in art that there are many alternativeconfigurations, all of which would be suitable and easily implementableby one of ordinary skill in the art of the invention.

In the user studies of the prototype “Connectibles” embodiment, thefriendFrame triggered some metaphorical associations with photographframes. Since people often think of photographs as mementos, and alreadyknow how to keep and display their important photos, the friendFrameprovides a natural place to store and display connectibles. If thesystem consists only of picture connectibles, such an association wouldlikely be strongest.

The prototype friendFrame also demonstrated that arrangement of theinteractive physical objects is a process. The preferred embodimentincludes a small button that, when pushed, puts the object communicationframe into a “ready to arrange” state. A signal, such as the small barof green LEDs under a frosted plastic cover that lights up on the bottomof the prototype friendFrame, may be provided to indicate this state tothe user. In this state, users may freely add, move, or removeinteractive physical objects. When done, the user engages the buttonagain. In a preferred embodiment, the system logs only the final state,adding some measure of privacy to the system. No other users, ifinspecting this person's arrangement with the visualization application,would ever see the interim arrangements. In this way, users may controlwhich arrangements are captured and which are not.

During the study of the “Connectibles” prototype, subjects observed thatplugging a connectible into the friendFrame felt like a relativelypermanent act. Some subjects also did not like the fact they had to pusha button before they could rearrange their connectibles; they wanted amore plug and play system. It will be clear to one of ordinary skill inthe art that modifications to accommodate such concerns are easily made.Further, it will be clear that object communication frames can bedesigned to allow additional frames to be plugged in on any side,permitting users to put together arrangements in a larger space.

One useful addition to both object communication frames and physicalinteractive objects is “sleep mode.” The user can put a communicationframe or individual interactive object to sleep, via a button press orany other suitable mechanism known in the art. Objects and frames stillcontinue to receive messages, which are stored and queued. When thedevices are woken up, any queued messages are then executed. Such asleep system allows the user to disable output, such as in order tosleep without interruption or added light, without taking the system offthe network. Another potentially advantageous addition to the frame ismotion detectors and microphones that provide some indication of auser's physical presence near the frame.

In one alternative embodiment, the system does not employ an objectcommunication frame. Instead, the interactive physical objects aredesigned to snap directly to each other without the use of an objectcommunication frame. This design requires either a special unit thatprovides power and communication to the outside world or that eachinteractive object have its own power and communication system. FIGS.9A-D depict prototypes of this alternative embodiment of a tangiblesocial network. In FIG. 9A, independent tiles 905, 910 are connecteddirectly together via low profile, right angle pins and sockets. In FIG.9B, connectibles 920, 925 of different size are directly connected withone another with special connector pieces 930. In FIGS. 9C and 9D,independent tiles 945, 950 with large pin header connectors 955 areconnected by special jumper pieces 960. Large connectibles 945 withscreens are pic connectibles, smaller ones 950 are glints.

It is clear that a connectorless system may also be advantageouslyemployed in the tangible social network of the invention. The systemcan, in fact, be advantageously implemented on top of other systems suchas, for example but not limited to, Sensetable [James Patten, HiroshiIshii, Jim Hines, and Gian Pangaro, “Sensetable: a wireless objecttracking platform for tangible user interfaces,” CHI '01: Proceedings ofthe SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages253-260, New York, N.Y., USA, 2001, ACM Press] or Siftables [DavidMerrill, Jeevan Kalanithi, and Pattie Maes, “Siftables: towards sensornetwork user interfaces”, TEI '07: Proceedings of the 1st internationalconference on Tangible and embedded interaction, pages 75-78, New York,N.Y., USA, 2007, ACM Press]. There may be, however, a trade off betweeninteractive physical objects as a facile tangible interface andinteractive physical objects as always-on remote awareness objects. Thatis, a system of pucks that are easy to move around may not lend itselfto being permanently displayed in a home or office. Bouchard'sSoundmites [David Bouchard, “Soundmites”, 2007] suggest a goodcompromise in form factor. These devices could be easily slid around oneanother and did not require physical connection, but they also includedmagnets so that they could be attached to and displayed on a verticalmetal surface. In general, connector-less form factors would entail amore technologically complex and expensive design of interactive object.Each interactive object would generally need to be self-powered andwirelessly networked, and the system as a whole would preferably be ableto recover the arrangement of the objects through some type oflocalization scheme.

It will further be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art of theinvention that the system does not rely on the use of particular formfactors or material choices. For example, instead of a two dimensionalgrid-based object connection frame, wearable form factors such asbracelets and necklaces may be produced without additions to the currenttechnology. A wearable system might consist of a bead-like form factorsuch as BuddyBeads, or a series of patches that could be affixed to ajacket or messenger bag. Such a system would eliminate the physicalpresence problem, since it would always be with the user. Flexiblecircuit boards could also be used instead of the current rigid designsin order to produce deformable, cloth-like interactive objects, such as,but not limited to, a quilt, wherein each interactive object attaches tothe others via a very short but flexible connector. An arrangement thusforms a kind of blanket that may be hung or draped. Hiding theaffordances is also possible and may be appealing. For example, allbuttons and knobs could be hidden under a customizable faceplate,emphasizing the individuality of each object.

In a preferred embodiment, a visualization application supports thespecifics of a tangible social network. The visualization applicationdirectly reflects the physical arrangement of the users' interactiveobjects. Thus, the visual application captures and displays social linkinformation inherent in the component objects. In the preferredembodiment, each interactive physical object type is displayed with itsown icon. Users can navigate to a friend's arrangements by doubleclicking on an interactive physical object that friend had given out. Byclicking on subsequent interactive physical object in other user'sarrangements, users may hop from their friend's arrangements, to theirfriend-of-friend's arrangements, and so on. This design, which wasimplemented in the “Connectibles” prototype, does not include privacysettings. It will be clear that privacy settings are easily implementedby one of skill in the art, and would permit a user to shield theirarrangements from being viewed by others.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram of one possible embodiment of an optionalvisualization application according to one aspect of the presentinvention. In FIG. 10, user interface 1010 communicates with tangiblesocial network visualization subsystem 1020 and interactive objectmanipulation subsystem 1030. Communications subsystem 1040 receivesinformation about the composition of a tangible social network of a userand communicates it to tangible social network visualization subsystem1020, which derives a representation of the tangible social network ofthe user from the information received by the communications subsystem.This representation is presented to the user via graphical userinterface 1010, which also accepts inputs from the user directed tomanagement of the user's tangible social network and, via interactiveobject manipulation subsystem 1030, individual interactive physicalobjects.

FIG. 11 is a screen shot from an example embodiment of a visualizationapplication. In FIG. 11, a representation 1110 of a user's connectiblearrangement is shown on left window 1115, and images 1120, 1122, 1124,1126, 1128, 1130 that this user can send to picture connectibles areshown on right window 1140. Left window 1115 automatically updateswhenever any user changes the physical arrangement of his or herinteractive physical objects. In the “Connectibles” prototypeembodiment, the visualization application was implemented with Pythoncode running on the PC, allowing the devices to hook up to the Internetin order to send messages. In particular, pyVisualizer is a piece ofgraphical software that allows users to see virtual representations oftheir connectibles and their friend's connectibles, as well as to sendpictures to the pic (OLED) connectibles. The code was developed inEclipse.

In the “Connectibles” prototype embodiment of the visualizationapplication, each connectible type was displayed with its own icon.Connectibles and frames were color-coded. For example, one user owned afriendFrame decorated with pink felt in the physical space. All of theconnectibles that this user distributed included a pink felt border.These connectibles were also colored pink in the visualizationapplication. In this way, users could determine which connectible camefrom whom in both the physical and virtual space. In a fully implementedsystem, this color-coding might preferably be replaced with somethingthat could disambiguate a larger number of users; for example, textmight be more appropriate in such a case. It will be clear to one ofordinary skill in the art of the invention that any of the many suitableways known in the art of disambiguating icons may be advantageouslyemployed in the invention.

In the “Connectibles” prototype, users could navigate to a friend'sarrangements by double clicking on a connectible that user had givenout. For example, in FIG. 11, if the user double clicks on “green”connectible 1150, Arrangements window 1115 switches to display the“green” user's arrangement. The color of outline 1160 surrounding theArrangements window was also color-coded, indicating which arrangementwas being viewed. For example, if a user were viewing the green user'sconnectible, the outline of the Arrangements window would be green. Theuser could click any connectible in the visualization application to seethe other users' arrangements, even if that user were not looking at herown arrangement to begin with. In this way, users could hop from theirfriend's arrangements, to their friend-of-friend's arrangements, and soon.

The “Connectibles” prototype visualization application also supportsconnectibles with PC-dependent messaging. In this case, it allows usersto send images to picture connectibles with a drag-and-drop interface.In order to mirror the tangible interactions, in which a user triggersan output on one connectible by interacting with its counterpart, a usersends an image to her friend by dragging the image onto therepresentation of the partner connectible given to her by that friend.While the prototype visualization application used during theevaluations supported only sixteen possible images, it will be clearthat the system can be designed to allow users to input arbitrary imagesfrom the web or their own collections into the system. Importantly,users do not need the visualization application to use the system. Ifthe user did not care about the arrangements of other users, and did notcare to either use picture connectibles or send images to them, then heor she would never need to use the visualization application. The systemtherefore works without relying on a GUI running on a PC.

The current Graphical User Interface component of the prototype systemis implemented as an installable application. However, it is trivial toport this application to a web-based system, accessible via a browser.This would allow users to use this component on any computer or devicewith a web browser, such as a wide variety of mobile phones and similardevices. Personal computers are therefore not a necessary component of atangible social network system. Implementing a fully functional mobilesystem is within the ability of one of skill in the art and is a naturalnext step. The visualization application can also be augmented over theprototype in myriad ways. In particular, it can trivially provide all ofthe functionality that commercial virtual social networks now provide.

In general, the visual representation of the interactive objects caneasily be made to reflect their physical state. The prototypevisualization application only reflects the users' connectiblearrangements, but it can easily be augmented to show, for example, thestate of the knob and picture objects. Representations of interactiveobjects might be rendered more or less transparent based on the numberof messages they have sent or received. Representations can also beeditable with a simple drawing tool, allowing them to be customized justlike their physical counterparts. Overall, richer representations of theinteractive objects will reveal more information about the socialrelationships of the users. The richer virtual representations of theobjects could also be stored over time and made available to the users.The visualization of the history of the arrangements and states arecapable of revealing a lot about one's social network. For example, oneprototype visualization application includes a scroll bar, which allowsthe user to browse through the history of arrangements. The history ofreceived and sent images may also be associated with the virtualrepresentation of the picture objects.

Network architecture. The design goals dictated the network architectureof the system. This communication layer is designed to be generalpurpose. First, it can support arbitrarily large numbers of users andinteractive objects. Second, it preferably operates over the internet(TCP/IP), rather than local intranets, so that messages can be sent fromanywhere to anywhere. Third, messages arrive in close to real time inorder to support synchronous behavior. Fourth, the architecture supportsarbitrary messages. Since designing different kinds of interactiveobjects is straightforward and requires little knowledge of theunderlying network protocol, there are no strong constraints on thetypes of interactions the system can support. Fifth, the architecturecan digitally capture user's arrangements, making them accessible at adistance. Finally, the architecture supports the required exchangesemantics.

It will further be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that whilethe specific network architecture employed may, if desired, becustomized to the requirements of the specific objects, frame, andvisual application employed, the actual objects employed, includingtheir interaction possibilities and physical design, are fully separablefrom the network protocol used. The protocol described herein isdesigned specifically to support the simple and robust creation of largenetworks of paired personal remote-awareness physical objects of manydifferent types. The protocol provides a means for physical devices toform direct channels to one another via personal exchange, withoutrequiring any special activation or user behavior in order to form thelink. In other words, if Bob has device A and Alice has device B, theyjust need to exchange them and the devices will be linked without anyspecial action on the part of Bob, Alice, or anyone else. This scheme isincorporated into the larger network protocol of the system, enablinglots of objects to form paired channels that can communicate globally.In a preferred embodiment, this occurs via the Internet using TCP/IP,but any of the many other suitable methods, protocols, andcommunications means known in the art are suitable and within the scopeof the invention.

The protocol developed for the present invention is novel in itself. Infact, the protocol is in large part separable from the physical designof the system, and many different design decisions may be made withoutchanging the network protocol. The network protocol does two mainthings: it transmits arbitrary messages from one interactive object toits partner over a two-tiered system, and it automatically pairsreciprocally exchanged objects so that they each have a destination forthose messages.

In the prototype, Tier One handles communication from connectibles tofriendFrame. Tier Two handles communication from friendFrame tofriendFrame via a TCP/IP connection. In this implementation of thenetwork protocol, the friendFrame microcontroller accesses a TCP/IPsocket via a serial-USB connection to a host computer. However, thefriendFrame printed circuit boards (PCBs) include pads for a WiPortembedded 802.11 WiFi radio, which can free the friendFrames from thewired connection to the host computer. Implementing code to interactwith the WiFi module is trivial and does not even require manufacturinga new friendFrame PCB.

FIG. 12 is a schematic of an example embodiment of a communicationsprotocol according to one aspect of the present invention. In FIG. 12, amessage is generated, sent, and executed across the network protocol.First User P interacts with interactive physical object m 1205 in frameP 1210, generating a message r. Frame P 1210 picks up message r frominteractive physical object m 1205 and routes it to the destinationframe Q 1220 via network 1240 A message can be routed to any objectcommunication frame 1220, 1250, 1255, 1260 and any resident interactiveobject, but the interactive object m 1205 already knows that is pairedwith interactive object n 1270 on frame Q 1220. This information iscontained in the message r, and the various waypoints in network 1240note the address information and route the message accordingly. Onceframe Q 1220 receives message r, it is delivered by frame Q 1220 todestination interactive physical object n 1270. It will be clear to oneof skill in the art that the simplified schematic representation of FIG.12 does not show the checks that must be executed in order tosuccessfully route a message, and that the depicted message contents ofr are simplified for clarity, but that the implementation of suchdetails is well within the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the artof the invention.

How the object communication frame talks to the interactive physicalobjects and vice-versa, and how the frame knows that an object is in acell are functions handled by Tier One. The messages that are handled byTiers One and Two are generated when the user interacts with aninteractive physical object (for example, turning a knob) or when theuser creates a computing device-dependent message (for example, sendingan image with the visualization application). The messages are routed toa destination object, which knows how to interpret the message to changeits own state (for example, a knob would change how many LEDs it haslit, or a picture object would change the image it is displaying).

In the “Connectibles” prototype, all network messages have the sameformat. The protocol's message is divided into bytes, as shown in FIG.13, which is a diagram of an embodiment of a network message formatusable with the protocol of FIG. 12. The bytes correspond to msgLen1310, destFFID 1320, srcFFID 1330, destConID 1340, srcConID 1350,msgCommand 1360, type 1370, and payload[0] . . . payload[n] 1380, 1390.The field msgLen 1310 describes how long, in bytes, this message is. Thefield destFFID 1320 is the ID of the friendFrame to which this messageis headed. The destination connectible is necessarily located on thisfriendFrame. The field srcFFID 1330 is the ID of the friendFrame fromwhich this message originated. The source connectible is on thisfriendFrame. If the message was created by a visualization application,the application fills in the correct, associated friendFrame ID. Thefield destConID 1340 is the ID of the connectible to which this messageis headed. The field srcConID 1350 is the ID of the connectible fromwhich this message originated. If the message was created by thevisualization application, the correct connectible ID is filled in. Thefield type 1370 denotes the type of connectible: knob, button orpicture. This information could eventually be folded into ConID.

All of the ID information is stored in each connectible; the messagesare generated in full each time a user initiates a message. Since theIDs are all only a byte, the prototype protocol supports only 255independent friendFrames and 255 independent connectibles. This was donefor simplicity and because the small scale prototype did not need tosupport more than this many devices. A simple extension increases thesize of these IDs to lengths that allow a much larger universe ofdevices (for example, 4 bytes, yielding about 5 million unique IDs).

The field msgCommand 1360 tells the destination connectible how tointerpret its payload, if a payload exists. For example, msgCommand 1360might be GLOW LEDS, which instructs a button connectible to glow itsring of LEDs. Each connectible knows how to interpret a subset of allpossible msgCommands. As long as the connectibles know what to do with amessage, the system will handle all communication: this is what makesadding connectibles easy. New connectibles simply need to include thecommunication libraries, generate a message on user input, and know howto interpret an incoming message to produce an output. payload providesarguments for msgCommand. Payloads are of length 0 to 10. For example,the GLOW LEDS command takes nine arguments. The first eight are binary,and tell the connectible whether or not to glow a particular one of itseight LEDs. The last argument tells the connectible how many times toglow the LEDs. It will be clear that other versions of the protocolcould trivially permit the maximum payload size to be much larger. Thelimitations on message size in the prototype were primarily because ofthe small RAM size on the AVRs (1 k for the Atmega88). A streamlinedprotocol and/or larger microcontroller would easily solve this problem.

In the prototype, Tier One allows connectibles and friendFrames tocommunicate. It does so using the I²C protocol. I²C is a flat bus, inthat the SDA and SCL lines are shared between all communicating ICs.This means that it is highly extensible; if it is desirable to add a newdevice to the system, all that must be done is to hook it up to the I²Cpins. Other protocols, such as UART and SPI, require dedicated pins foreach new device added to the bus. These protocols are therefore notextensible, requiring new board layouts as the number of devices grows.Connecting frames would therefore likely be more easily supported byI²C. If every device is connected to all the others, a means must beprovided so that one device can talk to another without the otherslistening in. The I²C protocol implements a 7-bit addressing scheme.Each I²C message includes an address along with the packet of bytes.Note that I²C messages are not network messages. Also, I²C addresses arenot connectible Ids. Devices only accept packets that are prefixed withtheir I²C address. A device can also send a message to all others usinga “general call address,” usually 0x00.

Since connectibles can be freely added and removed from the friendFrame,the friendFrame knows whether a connectible is present in a cell bymeans of the enumeration scheme. Similarly, the friendFrame cancommunicate with a “new” connectible, even though it cannot know inadvance that connectible's I²C address. This is also accomplished by theenumeration scheme. In this scheme, the friendFrame periodically“enumerates” the cells, looking for new connectibles and noting removedconnectibles. Enumeration always occurs when the user rearranges herconnectibles; it is triggered when the user presses the “rearrangement”toggle button on the friendFrame. The friendFrame keeps a local table inRAM of the state of all its cells. Each element in the table includesinformation about its corresponding connectible, such as ID informationand connectible type. This information is then recovered during theenumeration process.

The enumeration process is straightforward. The friendFrame does thesame process for each cell, serially moving through all of them. For agiven cell, the friendFrame first pulls the ENUM pin low. It then sendsa message addressed to all devices, asking “if you detect that your ENUMpin is low, please respond.” All other connectibles present in othercells will thus hear the message, but ignore it. If a connectible ispresent in that cell, it will send an acknowledgment message back to thefriendFrame. If no one is present, the friendFrame will time out andmove on. If a connectible is present, the friendFrame will assign it alocally unique I²C address. At this point, the friendFrame will be ableto communicate with the connectible without using the ENUM pin andgeneral calls. The friendFrame then recovers various criticalinformation from the connectible and stores it. This process continuesuntil all the cells are covered. If the friendFrame finds that aconnectible is no longer present in a cell, it simply erases thatconnectible information from its internal table.

An early “puzzle piece” prototype implemented a more complex enumerationscheme, known as a “distributed recursive token passing” algorithm.Briefly, the power unit would first enumerate its neighbors, then askeach neighbor to enumerate its neighbors. This process would recurse allthe way out to the “leaf” connectibles. If a neighbor connectible had nonon-enumerated connectibles, it would stop the process and report back.In this way, the recursion would collapse and end. Such a scheme mightbe usefully adapted for a future friendFrame that accepts add-on frames.

Once enumeration is complete, the friendFrame begins the communicationprocess. This is also straightforward. Each connectible, when a userinteracts with it, stores a message in its outbox. For example, a buttonconnectible will store a GLOW LEDS message in its outbox when a userpresses its button. The outbox is stored in the AVR's RAM. This messagehas all of the information necessary to route it to the partneredconnectible. Messages thus get queued up in the outbox as the userinteracts with a connectible. These outboxes are circular buffers thatstore up to 5 messages. If the outbox becomes full, the oldest messageis overwritten with the latest. However, it is extremely rare for morethan one message to accrue, given the 100 kHz speed at which the TierOne protocol operates. The friendFrame continually loops through thecells containing connectibles. If a connectible is present, thefriendFrame asks (over I²C) if that connectible has any messages in itsoutbox. If so, the friendFrame requests all of them. The connectiblewill empty its outbox, and the friendFrame will move the messages to itsown set of outboxes. The friendFrame prototype has one outbox per cell.

The friendFrame then drops off any messages it received from Tier Twointo the inbox of the connectible. The inbox is also a circular buffer,capable of storing five messages. This ends the communication betweenthe two devices, and the friendFrame moves on to the next connectible.As soon as the communication is over, the connectible begins executingand de-queueing the messages in its inbox, resulting in output behaviorvisible to the user. Note that the connectibles are slaves in thisprotocol; in general, they do what the friendFrame tells them to do.This process continues forever, with the friendFrame dropping offincoming messages to connectibles and sending outgoing messages to TierTwo.

Tier Two handles messages between friendFrames. As mentioned earlier,the friendFrames access the internet via TCP/IP using a host computer.The host computer runs a python demon that communicates with thefriendFrame via USB-serial link. This serial socket link issoftware-protected against any electronic or power failures on thefriendFrame; it re-creates itself if it dies, waiting for thefriendFrame to come back online. The demon is able to create TCP/IPsockets to send messages to arbitrary locations on the internet. Once afriendFrame has picked up and dropped off all messages from itsconnectibles, it gets ready to send and receive messages from Tier Two.The friendFrame acts as a master for both Tier One and Two. The pythondemon acts as a slave, waiting for instruction from the friendFrame.

First, the friendFrame tells the demon that it is ready to send outgoingmessages. The demon notes this. The friendFrame waits for anacknowledgment, then sends all outgoing messages via the USB serial linkto the demon as a byte stream. The demon encodes all these messages intolists, and stores them in its own outbox. At this point, the demon sortsits outbox according to the destFFID's of all its component messages. Ittakes all the messages for each destination and serializes them. It thenfinds the url corresponding to the destFFID in an internal look uptable. This table is hard coded locally within each demon, making thesystem totally peer-to-peer. A larger system might use a dedicated DNSserver or a more sophisticated peer-to-peer lookup system. Finally, thedemon opens a TCP/IP socket to the correct address, and sends along theserialized messages. It does so for the whole outbox, emptying it outcompletely. All the demons run a server socket in a dedicated thread.This server accepts all incoming messages, parsing them into lists andplacing them in a thread-safe inbox. These inboxes are emptied out andsent to the friendFrame. The demons rely on the DynDNS service, whichallows individual machines to keep human-readable urls even as their IPaddress changes (if they move to do a different room, for example).Using DynDNS means that the tables do not ever need to be updated orchanged, even if the host computer moves across the country.

After sending messages, the friendFrame then tells the demon that it isready to receive messages, again waiting for an acknowledgment from thedemon. The demon then encodes the incoming messages in its inbox intobytestreams and sends them over the link to the friendFrame. Thefriendframe receives the messages byte by byte, timing out on each byteand throwing out any message with a lost byte. The friend Frame notesthe destConID of each successfully received message, and places eachmessage in the appropriate outbox. If the friendFrame does not contain aconnectible with a destConID contained in a message, it throws themessage out. This should never happen, however. Once this process iscomplete, the messages get distributed to the destination connectiblesvia Tier One. Importantly, the friendFrame can also tell the demon thestate of all its connectibles; it does so after each enumeration. TheVisual application can communicate with demons to find out these states,and thus display the physical connectible arrangements.

The prototype connectibles system routes all user-generated messagesfrom one connectible to a partnered connectible. However, it is trivialfor these messages to be executed not by the connectible on afriendFrame, but by the friendFrame itself. For example, the friendFramecould include a soundcard and speaker system to output audio messagesgenerated by a user. Because the message must pass through thefriendFrame, the friendFrame can determine whether it should route themessage to a destination connectible or take action on it itself. Theadvantage here is primarily cost; building in more complex humaninput/output systems into the friendFrame means that one need not haveredundant and complex human input/output systems on each connectible.

The visualization application is part of Tier Two. It is implemented inpython; the GUI uses the pygame module. It runs independently of thecommunication demon. In order to render a connectible arrangement, theVisual application can ask a python demon for arrangement information.The Visual application has a hard coded url lookup table like thedemons. Again, this table could be made available on a dedicated server.Thus, the visualization application can retrieve arrangement informationfrom any friendFrame via the demons. This arrangement informationcontains not just the types and locations of the connectibles, but alsotheir address information. An optional implementation also passes thecurrent states of the connectibles (for example, how far a knob isturned) to the visualization application so it could render that aswell.

When a user initiates a PC-dependent message, such as sending an imageto a connectible, the visualization application can look up themessage's destFFID and the destConID using the arrangement informationit has acquired from a demon. It then opens a socket directly to thedestination demon and sends the message. The message includes source IDinformation (srcFFID and srcConID) as if it originated from theconnectible itself. The visualization application is thus built so thatit can be run anywhere and access and communicate with any friendFrame.

The pairing process is designed such that users do not need to engage inany special behaviors to ensure that any connectibles they exchange cancommunicate with one another. Using a couple of rules, the protocolallows this. By keeping track of their IDs, the network protocol allowsexchanged connectibles to automatically pair up. Connectibles store fouraddress fields: destFFID, srcFFID, destConID and srcConID. Connectiblesare “born” with their unique srcConID. In the prototype implementation,they are also born with a destFFID. This is a safe assumption: ifconnectibles were ordered online, the retailer would initialize theconnectible with this information. If, however, they were purchased inthe store, it is trivial to add a simple way to initialize theconnectible to its source friendFrame, such as, but not limited to,providing a special cell on the friendFrame that is specially dedicatedto initializing brand new connectibles. Of course, a “fresh,”unexchanged connectible will not know its srcFFID or destConID. It doesnot know with whom it will be exchanged. The connectible's destFFID willbe, once it is exchanged with someone, the place to which it sendsmessages. The connectible leaves the home of its owner, and once it isin a new friendFrame, it sends messages back to its giver's friendFrame:this friendFrame is therefore the destination (destFFID) for itsmessages.

FIG. 14 is a schematic of an example embodiment of the protocol used forthe establishment of a communications link between a pair ofreciprocally exchanged interactive physical objects according to oneaspect of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 14, the interactivephysical objects 1405, 1410 are initialized 1420 with dest FFID andsrcCONID. When an object is exchanged and put into an objectcommunication frame, it acquires 1430 srcFFID. Next, User B sends 1440 amessage 1445 from the exchanged interactive physical object back to thesource frame, which locates the corresponding unpaired interactivephysical object and stores the destConID. Finally, a callback 1450 issent 1460 from the corresponding interactive physical object to theexchanged interactive physical object, which stores its destConID. Theinteractive physical objects are now paired.

In an example of how the prototype system operates to pair interactiveobjects, Mary and Kate exchange connectibles, with the connectible fromKate being labeled “K” and the connectible from Mary being labeled “M.”Mary plugs K into her friendFrame. Kate has not yet plugged M into hers.Once K lands in Mary's friendFrame, the friendFrame enumerates it. ThefriendFrame discovers that K is a fresh connectible, and updates itssrcFFID. Mary sends a message to Kate. The connectible knows to send themessage to destFFID, its home. The message will go through Tier One andTier Two, arriving at Kate's friendFrame. However, the message will nothave a destConID. A friendFrame will do the following if it receives amessage without a destConID. First, it will search to see if thismessage's srcConID matches any of its own connectibles' destConIDs. Ifso, that means that the sending connectible is already paired, but forsome reason has not yet received a callback. In this case, thefriendFrame routes the message to the right connectible, and sends thecallback message. If the friendFrame does not find any connectibles thatare a match, it then searches for any fresh connectibles it has. If ithas none, it will throw the message out. In this example, the messagewill be thrown out, since Kate has not yet plugged M into herfriendFrame.

When Kate does plug M in her friendFrame, M goes through the sameprocess as K, acquiring a srcFFID. Mary sends another message. Thismessage arrives at Kate's friendFrame. This time, the friendFrame findsa fresh connectible, M. It first checks to see if the message's destFFIDmatches the fresh connectible's srcFFID. This check is important. If,for example, Kate had also received a fresh connectible E from Esther,the friendFrame must not accidentally pair E and M. If it finds aconnectible with a matching srcFFID, it then checks the connectible'stype. This check is also necessary. If Kate and Mary had exchanged twopairs of connectibles, two knobs and two pics, the pairing process mustnot pair a knob with a pic, since these two connectible types do notusually have a way of mapping their messages to one another. If thefresh connectible passes these tests, the friendFrame will tell it tostore the message's srcConID as its destConID. The connectible AVRstores this information in EEPROM, so that if it ever loses power (forexample, by being moved), the information will not be lost. At thispoint, connectible M is paired; all its messages will be sent with adestConID, routing the message directly to its partner connectible.Finally, M executes the message.

Once a fresh connectible gets paired, it immediately sends a callbackmessage back to its partner. This message tells the connectible to storethe message's srcConID as its destConID, ensuring that both exchangedconnectibles get fully paired. The protocol also handles problems if thecallback message does not arrive. The protocol ensures callback messageskeep getting sent until they arrive. In truth, the callback messagesshould always arrive, so this scenario is pretty unlikely. Still, it iswise to protect against these cases, since they would break the protocolif they do occur. At this point, the connectibles are paired andparticipate in the operational communication protocol describedpreviously. The exchange process ensures that only the connectibles thatusers exchanged get paired. It also means that the users can plug intheir connectibles at any time without ill effect, that they can plugthem in any arrangement, and that they can exchange multiple differentconnectibles with multiple different people at once. It also handlesvisualization messages as if they originated from the actualconnectibles, ensuring that pairing can occur without a problem.

There is one case in which the protocol might require some userintervention. If two users exchange multiple connectibles of the samekind at the same time, the protocol will pair them in the order theywere placed in the friendFrame, from left to right, top to bottom. Inthis case, the protocol will work fine, but if the users want to pairparticular connectibles, then they would have to coordinate how theyplugged them in. For example, they could plug them in one at a time,send messages, and then add the others. This case seemed rare enough andthe user action simple enough that it did not justify requiring specialhandling for the prototype system, but it is clear that such handlingcould be easily implemented if desirable.

It will be clear to one of skill in the art that, while the protocoldescribed may be advantageously employed in the implementation of thepresent invention, many other equivalent protocols would be suitable.The invention therefore does not require the described protocol andshould not be limited thereby. Further, while the prototype system sitson top of TCP/IP as its low-level communication (“transport” and“network”) protocol, the system would work equally well usingalternative protocols known in the art. For example, transport protocolsdetermine how a message gets from point A to point B, given anaddressing scheme. IP is one such addressing scheme (also known as a“network” protocol), but alternative transport protocols that could beused include, but are not limited to, UDP and SCTP. In particular, UDPis well suited for streaming, high-bandwidth data such as video andaudio. A system supporting these outputs would use UDP instead of TCPfor higher quality content delivery. Alternative network protocolsinclude, but are not limited to, IPv6 (a subset of IP with a largeraddress space) and IPSec (secure IP).

The data link layer sits below the transport and network protocols. Theprototype implementation uses WiFi and/or Ethernet. However, the datalink layer could be switched trivially to another type of protocol,including, but not exclusive to WiMAX and EVDO. Long-range protocolssuch as WiMAX and EVDO would particularly support mobile implementationsof connectibles, such as bracelet or other wearable form factors. ThefriendFrame might also use a PAN (Personal Area Network) or LAN (LocalArea Network) technology (including but not exclusive to Bluetooth orZigbee) to link to another device, such as a mobile phone or computer. Asimple daemon (background software running at all times) would interceptmessages from/to the friendFrame, and transport them using whatever datalink that device included (WiMAX, WiFi, EVDO, etc.). This type of systemwould allow users to send messages from their mobile phones tofriendFrames and connectibles, by for example, taking a picture on thecellphone and sending the message to a friend's connectible.

It will be clear to one of skill in the art that a tangible socialnetwork according to the present invention can be folded into a fullydeveloped virtual social network, complete with rich profile andmessaging tools. Further, the data generated in the physical space maybe used to drive more abstract visualizations. For example, thearrangement and interaction histories could have been used to extract anode-edge graph, in which nodes represented users and edges and edgethickness represented relationships and relationships strength,respectively. Based on the user-generated semantics design principle andthe early cardboard prototype experiment results, it was determined thatit would be presumptuous to assume that the users' arrangements andbehaviors could be interpreted and abstracted in a way that reliablycaptured their intentions. Instead, the prototype visualizationapplication reflected exactly what the users had done in the physicalspace, without interpretation. Users could therefore layer their ownarrangement interpretations on top of these visualizations. It will beclear to one of skill in the art that interpretation and/or abstractionof the user choices could be employed if desirable.

The ability for users to endow a variety of specific meanings onto theinteractive physical objects provides a great deal of room for the usersto signal specific things about their social relationships. Exchangesand messages need not be stereotyped or “pre-canned” acts. This suggeststhat the system is rather well-suited to reliably represent socialrelationships, since there is room to “spend” on the signals embodied inexchange and communication. In the studies, the physicality of thedesign seemed critical to almost all the subjects; physical objectsclearly embodied a deeper sense of social connection than virtualrepresentations of social relationships.

It can be seen that the prototype system satisfies the basicrequirements of a tangible social network. First, the connectibles aregifts; the system therefore consists of social objects (requirement 1).The connectibles enable direct channels of communication between thepeople represented by them (requirement 2). The visualizationapplication allows users to view captured social link informationinherent in the exchanged connectibles (requirement 3). Of course,within this definition, a range of design choices remain open; thedecisions made in the implementation of the system are implicitlydescribed in the scenario. The four most important questions are: (1)How does the physical form of the connectibles determine how they can bephysically arranged, and how does this inform what meaning thearrangements might acquire? (2) How do different types of connectiblessupport social communication channels? (3) How does the network layercapture the exchange of connectibles? (4) How does the visualizationapplication integrate with the physical system in terms of bothdisplaying social information and supporting interaction with physicalconnectibles?

The invention was developed with this principle in mind. If theinteractive physical objects are to support intimate communicationacross a wide variety of users, the system should not arbitrarilyconstrain the types of interactions in which these users can engage. Oneof the main contributions of the system is its ability to genericallysupport tangible remote awareness devices. The scenario describesseveral types of specific interactive objects, but the underlyingprotocol was built to support arbitrary messaging. Further, the systemdoes not attempt to predetermine the specific meaning of messagesbetween users, nor specific meanings in the way users interpretconnectible arrangements. To be sure, the physical and interactiondesign will bias users to certain behaviors. But within that context,the design is not meant to interpret on the user's behalf. The usersthemselves determine what the messages of the different interactiveobjects signify, and they also get to determine what their objectarrangements mean. A system that supports symbolic physical objectsideally provides wide latitude for such “user generated semantics.”

Tangible interfaces preferably also engage users who do not like or donot understand the GUI paradigm. The present invention supports suchusers, as the system is usable without requiring a PC. In other words,the system has a low barrier to entry, or “low floor.” A user cantherefore can use the invention without having to use a computer. Inparticular, the users do not have to engage in a special pairingprocedure to “tell” the system to pair the reciprocally exchangedobjects.

A typical user will decorate her objects, customizing them for herfriends; she exchanges them; she arranges the objects she's received inher frame; she uses the objects as an ambient, persistent communicationchannel to her friends; and she uses the visualization application toexplore her and her friends' social network structures. In a specificillustration of how the invention might be used, Mary, a freshman inhigh school, returns home from school in the afternoon. She checks themail, and sees that her Connectibles set has finally arrived. Inside thepackage she finds a rectangular friendFrame: the front has small emptycells arranged in a grid and it has a stand to prop it up, like aphotograph frame. One connectible can be plugged into each cell. Thereare also eight connectibles inside the package. Two of them have metalknobs on top, two have plastic buttons. The last four look like small,thin displays. Mary and her friends Michelle, Kate and Esther are alwayssending each other pictures over Facebook, so she decides to set asideone display, or “pic,” connectible for each of them. Michelle is Mary'sbest friend; they share everything. Mary decides to set aside a knob anda button for her. Mary chooses to save the other connectibles for laterand tosses them in her backpack. Mary then starts decorating theconnectibles. Rustling through her drawers, she grabs some glue, feltand stickers and goes to work, personalizing each connectible.

The next day, the four friends meet up at lunch. They all exchangeconnectibles with one another. Mary and Michelle exchange two knobconnectibles, and agree to crank the knobs low when they are feelinglonely, and high if they are in a good mood. The friends finishexchanging connectibles as the bell rings for class. When Mary getshome, she places the connectibles she just received on her desk. Marydecides to cluster all the pic connectibles in the center of thefriendFrame. Since Michelle was really the person that introduced allthe friends to one another back in junior high, she places Michelle inthe center of the frame. Once the connectibles are plugged in, theylight up. A picture of Esther and Mary from a field trip appears onEsther's connectible; a picture of koala appears on Michelle's picconnectible. Excited, Mary turns Michelle's knob connectible all theway. Not long afterwards, the knob connectible lights up all the way:Michelle must be sitting in front of her friendFrame, turning Mary'sknob connectible.

Mary goes to her computer and logs onto the Connectibles website. Oncelogged in, the visualization application starts up. With it, Mary seesher arrangement of connectibles represented graphically. She loads upsome pictures from a folder on her computer; they pop up in a windownext to the connectibles arrangement. Mary drags a picture from seventhgrade over to the connectibles on the screen, thereby sending them toher two friends. Mary decides to check out her friend's arrangements.She clicks on Michelle's connectible, and sees Michelle's arrangement.It must have twenty connectibles! She scrolls over the connectibles; itlooks like Michelle's whole family is represented in one cluster.Michelle is pretty close to her family. In fact, it looks like she has acouple buttons and a knob just for her mom. That makes sense; Michelle'smom hates using computers. The button and knob connectibles work withoutneeding to use a computer at all.

Mary then finds her own connectible next to Brandon's. Mary clicks overto Brandon's arrangement to see who's on it. John, from Mary's oldsummer camp; Mary wonders how Brandon knows John. Something to talkabout at lunch maybe? Over the course of the summer, Mary glances at herfriendFrame, checking to see how Michelle is doing, calling her if herknob is low. She adds a few more friends, and changes the arrangement.She is able to browse through her friend's arrangements, and look at howthey change. Mary likes glancing at her friendFrame as she works on hercomputer or reads a book, just get to a sense of what her friends are upto. She's grown especially fond of Michelle's pic connectible, browsingthrough all the pictures she has received with two small buttons on theconnectible itself. Mary decides to take the FriendFrame with her tocamp, and puts it by her bunk, so she can be close to her friends eventhough they are not around. She brings some extra connectibles with her,hoping that she might make a few new friends there as well.

The prototype invention was subjected to three different evaluations.The first was with cardboard prototypes. This study was conducted totest whether people could use arbitrary physical objects as symbols forother people in their lives, and explored how people map qualities oftheir social network onto arrangements of these symbolic physicalobjects. The second and third studies were conducted with the full,working prototype system, and were meant to elicit users' responses tothe system and the tangible social networking concept in general. Thetwo final evaluations were thus designed to illicit responses from usersthat would apply to a full system.

Evaluation One: Mapping the Social onto the Physical. Each subject inthis study was given a set of cardboard puzzle pieces, and asked tolabel each piece with a post-it note. The subject was asked to write onthe post-it the name of someone to whom they were close. They were thenasked to arrange these pieces in any way they saw fit. Each subject wasasked to do this task under a few different conditions; each conditionvaried different factors, such as the shape and size of the puzzlepieces. This study was run with five subjects, four male and one female;each session lasted about one hour. This study determined thatindividuals do readily map social structures to arrangements of physicalobjects, and they typically do so according to simple rules. Forexample, physical proximity of two objects means that the peoplerepresented by those objects are socially close. Second, the limitationsof physical objects encouraged rich mappings. The physical design of theobjects prevented certain kinds of actions. For example, each physicalobject could not be connected to all the others, since it had a limitednumber of connection points. The kind of node-edge graph often used tovisualize social networks could not be easily translated into the puzzlepiece design.

This design actually encouraged richer mappings than the more flexiblenode-edge structure. Because subjects had to make choices, it requiredthem to carefully think through their arrangements. One subject wrote,“I struggled with the shapes at first . . . . It took a while to thinkof nuanced meanings. But I began to see them . . . . I could makeexplicit what I was just defining and negotiating in my head.” Thisstudy suggested that a tangible social network system might have somemerit: people can associate physical objects with particular people, andarrangements of these objects contain social meaning.

Evaluations Two and Three: Response to the prototype. Evaluation Two, orthe “short-term study,” was conducted with twelve subjects, 7 male, 5female. They were recruited via email, all were undergraduate orgraduate students. Each session included three subjects; four sessionswere conducted. Each session lasted around one and a half hours. Thesubjects were each given one friendFrame and six connectibles: twobuttons, two knobs, and two pics. They were also provided with a MacMini running the visualization application. The subjects were placed inthe same room and physically separated by foam core walls, preventingthem from seeing what the other subjects were doing. This separationalso simulated a condition in which the subjects were in differentlocations.

The subjects had the experiment explained to them orally and in writing.The subjects were provided with paper faceplates, markers, pens andstickers with which to customize and decorate the button and knobconnectibles. Subjects were invited to exchange connectibles, if theychose, with any of the other subjects, at any time. Subjects wereinvited to use the connectibles to communicate, to use the visualizationapplication, and to rearrange the connectibles, if they chose. Technicalassistance was provided if the users encountered any problems or had anyquestions; the system functioned fairly robustly. Minor problems wereencountered, but these were resolved in less than thirty seconds or so.Overall, the study took a relatively freeform approach, invitingsubjects to use the system in any way they saw fit. They were asked toprovide any comments orally, if they chose; these comments were writtendown. The subjects were presented with a written survey at the end ofthe session. Both the subjects' comments and observation of theirbehavior led to a list of results. Evaluation Two was obviously tooshort for the subjects to fully use the system for its intended purpose.While it was attempted to set up groups of subjects that hadpre-existing friendships, such that they would have some motivation touse Connectibles, this could not be completely controlled for. However,the short-term study did permit using a larger number of subjects.

In order to remove the confounding conditions of the short-term study, aseven day investigation with three subjects, Evaluation Three (“thelong-term study”), was performed. This study's subjects were all male.Two were students, the other was postdoctoral research staff. This studysimulated more realistic conditions. The friendFrames were located inthe subjects' real workplaces. Two of the subjects worked on oppositesides of a large office space. Lab equipment prevented them from seeingone another while they were at their desks. The third subject worked ina different office on the same floor. The subjects knew one another,were friendly, and worked together, providing a pre-existing impetus forsocial behavior. Given the length of time this experiment took and theconstraints on appropriate subjects, one session was run.

This experiment took the same freeform approach of the short-term study;subjects were welcome to use Connectibles however they chose. Like theshort-term study, each subject was given two knobs, two buttons and twopics, as well as faceplates and access to markers, pens and stickers.Subjects were asked to fill out a short survey at the end of each day,as well as a long survey at the end of the experiment. These twoevaluations yielded a number of results. Subjects had a number ofsuggestions for the system, both in terms of specific improvements tothe current design, as well as new possible features. Some subjects hadmixed reactions to the concept; they noted that it was something theymight like to use if a number of other people were already using it.This is of course unsurprising for a networked system. Some groups ofsubjects used Connectibles in unpredictable ways, suggesting it providedan open interaction space.

Unlike in Evaluation One, almost all subjects did not interpret theothers' arrangements in any particular way. One short-term study subjectwrote, “I didn't really develop a clear logic [about my ownarrangement], and did not assume that anyone else had either.” Thiswould seem to contradict the results of the first experiment. Theseresults may have had more to do with the conditions of the experimentthan the design of the Connectibles. As one subject wrote, “I'm not surethe arrangements could be that meaningful with only three connectiblesper person.” Clearly, the fact that only two people could be representedon a friendFrame severely limited the amount of play that could go onwith the arrangements, in terms of mapping social relationships.Further, the subjects of the short-term experiment may not have hadenough time nor strong enough relationships to the other subjects forany kind of mapping process to take hold.

Still, the design of Connectibles may have itself contributed to theattenuation of meaningful arrangements. First, as one subject pointedout, it was not that easy to move the connectibles around thefriendFrame. The act of plugging them into a cell felt more permanentthan sliding pieces of cardboard around. The friendFrame itself alsolent a more stable, furniture-like feel to the system. In that sense,the system design emphasized its role in ambient social connection morethan its role as a facile tangible interface.

The subjects enjoyed the customization process particularly in thecontext of the exchange; it allowed them to both establish the messagesemantics as well as invest a little bit of themselves into theconnectibles they gave away. A few joked about taking back theconnectibles if the recipient was not responsive. It was clear viaobservation that the gift giving aspect of the system was wellunderstood and clearly endowed the connectibles with symbolic meaning asindicators of a social link.

Two of the four groups of short-term subjects did not establish much ofan interaction language with the connectibles, in terms of assigningmeaning to the messages. Many noted, again, that there was not enoughtime to do so. The buttons seemed the most arbitrary. However, the othertwo connectibles did take on some straightforward meanings Most subjectscorrelated the knob settings with overall mood. The pic connectiblessupported emoticons, which had clear interpretations. One group inparticular quickly endowed the connectibles with strong (and humorous)meanings. These subjects customized most of the connectibles withwritten, imperative messages. For example, one subject decorated a knobwhich, when changed, told its receiver how loudly to demand Oreos fromsomeone nearby. These subjects had a lot of fun with Connectibles, andbuilt their own personal game with it, in a way that had not beenpredicted. This result demonstrated that people can endow the purposelyabstract connectible messages with personal meaning.

This group also begs the question as to why they had a differentexperience than the others. They clearly already knew each other well(as they indicated on the written survey); their relationships werealready informal, friendly and playful. This fact made it clear that theConnectibles system, which is meant to support intimate and friendlyrelationships, offers little to social groups built on formal or weakrelationships. The long-term subjects generated some specific, richsemantics for the connectibles, especially the knobs and pics. Apartfrom the buttons, they did not have trouble assigning meanings to themessages. For example, one subject decorated a knob to indicate hiscurrent belief that his research would bear fruit.

However, it took these subjects a couple of days of using the system tosettle on some meanings. After a few days, two of them decided to usethe picture connectibles to show the other where they were on campus.Four pictures respectively indicated “in the office,” “in the lab,” “ina fabrication lab somewhere else on campus,” and “at home.” Theseobservations suggest that Connectibles can indeed support a rich andvaried set of user generated semantics. However, the participants needto be able to use the system for a longer period of time and have somepre-existing relationships. This, of course, bodes well for a fullyimplemented system.

Subjects also wanted more feedback about the state of other people'sconnectibles. For example, the painted pointer on the knob was notsufficient feedback as to the state of its partner. The visualizationapplication could have reflected the state of the knobs and pics aswell, instead of just their position on the friendFrame. All theseobservations point to greater, more salient feedback and a tightercoupling between the physical state of the connectibles and theirvirtual representations. It was clear that subjects wanted greaterinsight into the behaviors and actions of other users, which is a verypositive sign for a social networking application.

A tangible social network is not a PC-based social network. Mostimportantly, when subjects were explicitly asked to compare Connectiblesto virtual social networks, almost none of them found them to satisfythe same needs. There were a few common remarks. First, Connectibles wasabout deeper, and thus fewer, social relationships. That also meant thatthe types of social behavior a tangible social network should supportare different than those a virtual social network should. One subjectwrote, “Connectibles is more suited for the few most intimate [people]in your lives, that you want constant ‘connections.’ Web-based [socialnetworks are more suited for] the mass friends in your life.” A sense ofsocial connection is more important with one's inner circle. Thissubject seems to indicate that this kind of communication is differentthan what one might want or need from a PC-based social network.

One subject summed up key aspects of the system, writing, “The physicalobjects are nice. They feel like you've exchanged a real thing. Unlikethe stupid ‘gifts’ you can buy for people on Facebook.” Another wrote,“The physical objects are more personally meaning and precious.” Anothersaid, “There's something about the token aspect and the desire for aconnection that makes me think of memories as well as social networks.In that way, I think I would use [Connectibles] in situations andrelationships that I would like to remember.” The physicality wasclearly important, especially for establishing a sense of socialconnection.

The series of evaluations revealed a lot of new directions for theinvention. They also indicated that the idea has promise, since manyusers left with positive impressions of the system. The evaluationsindicated that the system works best for people who have pre-existing,friendly social relationships, which bears out a hypothesis of theConnectibles design. By the same token, users who do not have strongrelationships with other participants do not easily see Connectibles'value. Most important, the physicality of the design seemed critical toalmost all the subjects; physical objects clearly embodied a deepersense of social connection than virtual representations of socialrelationships. This fact supports the theoretical claim of theimportance of objects as symbols of social relationships.

The invention is therefore a new kind of tangible social networkapplication rooted in physical objects and real world social behavior.The prototype demonstrated the promise such a system has for allowingpeople to feel intimately socially connected to their friends andfamily. Tangible social networks implicitly map the properties of thesocial world onto the physical world, a connection only recently brokenby digital media. This mapping is beneficial in three principal ways.First, unlike virtual social networks, tangible social networks keepsocial behavior in a familiar realm—the physical world. Second, tangiblesocial networks naturally prune out very weak relationships. Because theexchange of physical objects is sufficiently costly, relationshipsrepresented by them are likely to be honest. Third, tangible socialnetworks benefit from the general advantages of tangible userinterfaces: they allow fully embodied, natural physical interactions.One must interact with virtual social networks via a GUI and itslimitations—its single point of control (the cursor), its inability toproperly take advantage of foreground and background attention, thedifficulty it presents in working collaboratively in real-time. Finally,you can't spam someone with a tangible interface.

Most importantly, the physicality of the system generated anenthusiastic response among the subjects. Tangible interfaces are oftencriticized for their cost: physical things cannot be easily copied anddistributed, they can become worn over time, they are hard to replace.In this case, it is precisely these properties that engendered theusers' positive response. The theoretical framework suggested thatsignals in the form of physical objects would better represent closesocial relationships than purely virtual signals. These two differentkinds of media entail different inherent costs; these costs influencehow reliably these media can signal the strength of a socialrelationship. This framework led to the idea that customizable, physicalgifts entail greater costs in the domain of the quality beingsignaled—the strength and existence of a social relationships—thangeneric, inexpensive virtual signals. The higher costs inherent in aphysically based system tacitly cause users to signal only their closerelationships, pruning out weak acquaintances and strangers. Theinvention addresses some of the limitations of PC-based social networks,providing a new way to harmoniously support social behavior in thephysical and virtual worlds.

While a preferred embodiment of the invention is disclosed herein, manyother implementations will occur to one of ordinary skill in the art andare all within the scope of the invention. Each of the variousembodiments described above may be combined with other describedembodiments in order to provide multiple features. Furthermore, whilethe foregoing describes a number of separate embodiments of theapparatus and method of the present invention, what has been describedherein is merely illustrative of the application of the principles ofthe present invention. Other arrangements, methods, modifications, andsubstitutions by one of ordinary skill in the art are therefore alsoconsidered to be within the scope of the present invention, which is notto be limited except by the claims that follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. An interactive physical object communicationframe, comprising: a housing, the housing being adapted to receiveinstallation of and to display at least one interactive physical object;a communications subsystem, the communications subsystem being adaptedfor receiving and managing communications with, and communicationsbetween, the installed interactive physical object and an interactivephysical object that is communicatively-linked to the installedinteractive physical object; and a controller, the controller beinglocated within the housing and being adapted for: receiving andprocessing commands and data received from the communications subsystem;and generating at least one response command or data in response to thereceived commands and data.
 2. The object communication frame of claim4, further comprising an interactive physical object power subsystemadapted for providing power to installed interactive physical objects.3. The object communication frame of claim 1, the controller beingfurther adapted for: receiving and processing commands and data receivedfrom at least one tangible social network visualization application; andgenerating at least one response command in response to the receivedvisualization application commands and data.
 4. The object communicationframe of claim 1, further comprising at least one user interface capableof accepting direct user input.
 5. The object communication frame ofclaim 4, further comprising at least one user control feedback devicecapable of providing confirmation to a user that user input has beenreceived.
 6. The object communication frame of claim 1, furthercomprising at least one response subsystem, the response subsystem beingadapted for displaying at least one visual or audio response to aresponse command received from the controller.
 7. The objectcommunication frame of claim 6, the response subsystem comprising atleast one of a video display, a light emitting diode, or an audiodevice.
 8. The object communication frame of claim 1, wherein thecommunications subsystem communicates with the communicatively linkedinteractive physical objects via a computing or internet-based device.9. The object communication frame of claim 1, the communicationssubsystem being further adapted to send and receive commands and data toand from a tangible social network management application.
 10. Theobject communication frame of claim 1, wherein the object communicationframe is physically extensible by connection to at least one otherobject communication frame.
 11. The object communication frame of claim1, wherein each interactive physical object comprises: an interactivephysical object housing; an interactive physical object controller, theinteractive physical object controller being located within theinteractive physical object housing and adapted for: forming acommunicatively linked relationship with at least a second interactivephysical object; receiving and processing commands and data receivedfrom the linked interactive physical object; and generating at least oneresponse command in response to the received commands and data; and atleast one interactive physical object response subsystem, theinteractive physical object response subsystem adapted for displaying atleast one visual or audio response to a response command received fromthe interactive physical object controller.
 12. The object communicationframe of claim 11, wherein the communicatively linked relationshipformed by the interactive physical object with the at least one otherinteractive physical object is a communicatively linkedexclusively-paired relationship, such that the interactive physicalobject and the linked exclusively-paired interactive physical objectsform a dedicated communications channel.
 13. The object communicationframe of claim 11, the interactive physical object further comprising atleast one interactive physical object user interface capable ofaccepting direct user input.
 14. The object communication frame of claim13, the interactive physical object further comprising at least oneinteractive physical object user control feedback device capable ofproviding confirmation to a user that user input has been received. 15.The object communication frame of claim 11, the interactive physicalobject controller being further adapted for: receiving and processingcommands and data received from at least one tangible social networkvisualization application; and generating at least one response commandin response to the received visualization application commands and data.16. The object communication frame of claim 11, the interactive physicalobject further comprising an on-board power source.
 17. The objectcommunication frame of claim 11, wherein the interactive physical objectis customizable by a user.
 18. The object communication frame of claim13, the interactive physical object user interface comprising at leastone of a button or an adjustable knob.
 19. The object communicationframe of claim 11, the interactive physical object response subsystemcomprising at least one of a video display, a light emitting diode, oran audio device.
 20. The object communication frame of claim 11, whereinthe interactive physical object is physically connectible directly to atleast one other interactive physical object.